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Artificial skin. Tweezers hold a culture of the first artificially-grown skin to be virtually identical to natural human skin. The skin was developed in the L'Oreal laboratories in Paris, France, in 1997. Its outer layer (epidermis), middle layer (dermis) and lower layer (hypodermis) have all the specialised cells and structures usually found in normal skin. The artificial skin also behaves like living skin, meaning that it can be grafted onto injuries or be used instead of animals for tests of cosmetics and drugs. The skin is also used in research into ways of avoiding or repairing the damage caused to skin by exposure to the harmful ultraviolet rays in sunlight.